Chapter 5: The First Summer Without Long Sleeves
Six months later.
Chicago welcomed its warmest summer in years.
The gardens behind the Voss estate bloomed with white roses.
Petra arranged lunch beneath the trees.
The staff gathered for the first estate celebration in years.
Cassian arrived late.
When he saw Saraphina...
He stopped walking.
She was wearing a simple pale-blue dress.
Short sleeves.
The scars remained visible.
She no longer tried to hide them.
Not because they had disappeared.
Because shame had.
She smiled.
"They're part of my story."
Cassian walked closer.
"They're proof you survived."
She reached for his hand.
"For years, I believed scars meant I was broken."
"And now?"
She looked toward the bright summer sky.
"Now I know they mean I kept living."
Months later, Cassian and Saraphina transformed one of the Voss Foundation's unused properties into a refuge for women escaping abuse and violence.
Every woman who entered was greeted with the same words written above the front door:
You are safe here.
The mansion no longer felt like a prison.
It became a home.
The locked doors were replaced with open windows.
The nightmares came less often.
The laughter came more.
And every summer after that...
Saraphina wore short sleeves without fear.
Not because the scars had faded—
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But because the woman who carried them had become stronger than the man who created them.
The End.
